Each week, Teen Vogue will be taking you on a journey to Riverdale, a quaint little town hiding some very big secrets.

It’s holiday time in Riverdale, and as Jug types away on his laptop at Pop’s, Archie and his dad deliver a Christmas tree (spoiler alert: it does not seem like anyone in Riverdale celebrates anything other than Christmas) to Pop, and then the two best buds chat about winter break plans and how they’re both “not in a good place” with Veronica and Betty. Misery loves company, and if our bros are both having girlfriend woes, at least they're in this together, right?

Speaking of Betty, she's being roused in the middle of the night by Polly saying “he’s here!” and running downstairs. When Betty joins, she finds her whole family (will Polly EVER have those babies?) celebrating, and Santa at the tree — except it’s really the Black Hood in a Santa suit, holding a giant knife and crawling over the couch to reach her. Of course it’s just a dream, but it’s enough to shake Betty to her core.

Also shaken? Cheryl, who discovers the next morning that her family is having a scaled-down Christmas this year (as symbolized by a miniature candy cane) because they’ve got no money. Her mother tells her to face the facts, but Cheryl looks crestfallen. And speaking of money, Fred and Archie are also having a rough go of it. They’re selling trees for some extra cash, but Fred’s hospital bill just came in to the tune of $86,000. Yikes. Meanwhile, Betty admonishes Veronica for not sticking to their $20 Secret Santa limit, but V just goes down her list of gifts for her parents, Betty, and Archie…purchased before break-up. But they’re still friends!

And at school, all the friends — newly-minted exes and all — exchange Secret Santa gifts. It gets awkward when Veronica opens a couple massage gift certificate from Josie, who quickly blurts out “You can take Betty! Or your mom!” The awkwardness continues when Betty opens her gift from Archie: an old record they listened to as kids, which just highlights their deep bond in front of both Veronica and Jughead (who is hanging out at RHS for the gift exchange, BTW). When Midge and Moose come into the lounge and everyone starts gushing over welcoming Moose back, Archie hastily leaves and Betty follows to question him. He’s still upset over the Black Hood; seeing Moose just makes him think of the BH’s reign of pain. Betty agrees, then gets distracted by a new janitor down the hall. Where’s Mr. Svenson? Apparently out sick. But Archie and Betty are worried that they might’ve led the Black Hood right to him (though I’m not sure why the BH would’ve been looking for Mr. Svenson).

But there’s no time to mull that over because we need to see some uncomfortable ex interactions! Betty and Jughead exchange gifts and fight about whose decision it is what Betty risks and for whom (um, hers), and Archie opens his gift from Veronica (it’s a watch) and unloads on her about his dad’s medical bill…and then promptly splits. So everyone’s still broken up, yeah? Yeah.

Here’s one good piece of news, though: the Serpents have turned the Whyte Wyrm into their charity HQ — Toni is coordinating gifts and donations for Meals on Wheels, Toys for Tots, etc. Aww! Too bad all Juggy is really interested in is fighting with his dad about their Penny debt and what F.P. now has to do for her. This fight happens over and over again throughout the episode, and the gist of it each time is this: Jughead wants to help, F.P. doesn’t want him to.

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Meanwhile, Betty’s working with her third choice of detective partner: Archie. (Let’s be real, Jughead and Veronica both rank higher for her when it comes to detectiving, and I don't blame her. They're slightly more resourceful and conniving than earnest Arch.) They check out Mr. Svenson’s house, which seems empty, and when Betty comes home to find a “Secret Santa” present from the Black Hood that contains the janitor's bloody, severed finger, she calls Archie for help — instead of going to her mom, who is right downstairs baking cookies. Anyway, the Black Hood included a note and follows up with a call: find where the primal sin was committed, reveal the secret sin to the town, and you may find Joseph Conway/Svenson alive. Archie hops on the call and calls the Black Hood a maniac, but that doesn’t do much good — the BH hangs up. Archie then recalls that Mr. Svenson stayed at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy before he was adopted. So off they go!

But first, some holiday hijinks. Hermione tries to find out if she’s getting something from Spiffany’s for Christmas, and Veronica calls her parents out for throwing around money like they’re royalty when other families are struggling. She tells them about Fred’s hospital bill and is juuust about to ask if they can help — but her parents shut her down. As revenge, she calls out what a good father Fred is, and Hiram leaves the table in a huff. Over at the Blossoms's, Penelope is also in a huff, because Cheryl has taken it upon herself to vomit up Christmas spirit all over the living room. When her mother asks how she intends to pay for the tree, decorations, etc., Cheryl basically tells her mom to get a job and then leaves the room. Which is when Nana Rose Blossom tells Penelope she “should’ve drowned them at birth, like a litter of kittens.” Uh, what?! Penelope may not always be a saint, but at least she has the sense to look totally shocked at that.

Meanwhile, Jughead and F.P. go another round in their ongoing fight, during which F.P. reveals that he hoped they could visit Jug’s mom and sister in Ohio on Christmas and Jughead reveals that F.P.’s parole officer paid their trailer a visit. This fight later results in Jughead rallying all the younger Serpents (Toni, Sweetpea…) to “take care” of Penny. Oh, Jug. I have a feeling how this is going to end, and it's not "well."

Over at the Pembrooke, Veronica’s snooping in Hiram’s office and finds out that her parents bought Pop’s. She considers what to do with this information, and decides that the logical next step is to pay Fred’s $86,000 hospital bill on her mother’s American Excess credit card (as an anonymous angel donation). Also, what is with Riverdale's punny brand names? Last week was Shankshaw, what's next... Popify, a music streaming platform from Pop Tate himself?

At the Sisters for Quiet Mercy home (which is still creepy!), Betty manages to get the scoop on Mr. Svenson by threatening to go public with how Polly was treated when she stayed there. (Uh, maybe you should go public with that anyway, B? Just an idea.) Turns out that Mr. Svenson may have pointed out the wrong man to the mob who wanted justice for the Conway family murders — and therefore, got an innocent man killed. Uh-oh. The sister doesn’t know the names of the group members who carried out the execution, but there was one woman in the group: a woman who had white hair with one bright red streak. Nana Rose?! Are you a murderer?!

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Before Betty and Archie can dive into (more of) the Blossom family secrets, Jughead and the Serpents need to take care of Penny Peabody…by kidnapping her at her warehouse, taking her to Greendale, telling her to do whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t do it in Riverdale, and cutting the Serpent tattoo off of her forearm. Yes, you read that right. Ew!

And over at the Lodges's, Hiram and Hermione confront their daughter about her foray into credit card theft, who in turn confronts them about Pop’s and all the secrets they continue to keep, despite promising to let her into the Lodge Industries cabal. At Hermione’s urging, the family sojourns into the study so that they can loop Veronica in on everything — meaning, it’s time to stop being “Daddy’s little girl” and start working, all together. Sounds ominous…

At the Blossoms's, Nana Rose tells Betty (who she still thinks is Polly) and Archie that the group of men told her to stay at home — no women allowed! — before they buried the not-Reaper alive, and that there’s a photo of them standing over the grave. Oh and P.S., Betty’s grandfather was in on the attack! B melts down over that tidbit in the car (what if her grandfather’s involvement was the whole reason the Black Hood picked her to torment?) and Archie calms her down. In the heat of the moment, they KISS, but soldier on a second later to go to Betty’s and look through her grandfather’s old photos. Of course, Cheryl saw it all go down from her window, so look for some Blossom Blackmail™ coming your way in 2018, B and A.

Back in Hiram’s office, the Lodges have filled their daughter in on their scheming (we missed it!) and before agreeing to be involved, Veronica lays down two ground rules: she won’t do anything illegal (to this, Hermione tells her about the phrase “plausible deniability”) and Fred’s bill stays paid. Hermione and Hiram agree, particularly because they’ll need Fred for “what comes next” (sounds ominous, again). So Veronica’s all in, but she doesn’t look that excited about it.

Jughead, on the other hand, is excited, because he gets to tell his dad that he took care of the Penny problem. F.P. is not impressed, though, and thinks Penny will come back again. Jug finally spills it all: he’s proud to be a Serpent, and he knows that if Penny does come back, the Serpents will handle it — together. It looks like it’s finally sinking in for F.P. exactly what his son’s gotten into…

Meanwhile, Betty and Archie find the infamous photo in her grandfather’s collection, and recognize the spot as Pickens Park — so they rush over there, calling Sheriff Keller on the way. When they arrive at a freshly covered grave (complete with handwritten headstone for Mr. Svenson), Archie doesn't wait for the sheriff and starts digging. The coffin they uncover is empty, though, and just as they’re trying to figure out what this means, the Black Hood steps into the frame with a gun. I admit it: I jumped. By pointing a gun at Betty, the BH gets Archie to climb into the coffin. Betty to start shoveling dirt onto it, but luckily police sirens blare and break everyone’s concentration — and Betty has the presence of mind to smash her shovel over the Black Hood’s head while he’s distracted. She quickly helps Archie out of the claustrophobic coffin and they chase the Black Hood to a bridge. Archie, who grabbed the BH’s gun after he ran off, points it at the Black Hood and tells him that this all ends tonight. Suddenly, the Black Hood crumples to the ground, shot —but by Sheriff Keller, not Archie. The BH is dead, and when Keller unhoods him…it’s Mr. Svenson, who chopped off one of his own fingers to threaten Betty. How Peter Pettigrew of him.

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At our usual episode-ending Pop’s debrief, Archie expresses regret over how Veronica was right, and they could’ve ended it all that night at school, but Archie just didn’t see it in his eyes. Betty suggests that maybe Svenson thought that targeting sinners would balance out his original sin of accusing the wrong man of his family’s murder, and Jughead says maybe it’s enough to know that they’re all safe for now. But…are they?

The next day, which it seems is Christmas, Josie and Kevin sing a carol while we see Cheryl discovering mommy literally kissing Santa Claus; Jughead opening a vintage typewriter from Betty; Betty opening a signed first edition of Beloved from Jughead; and Veronica opening a heart locket from Archie, then surprising him at his house with mistletoe and an “I love you, too.” They kiss and make up, while someone takes photos of them from behind a bush. And Betty takes her lockbox of Black Hood evidence down to the fire and burns it all, but at the last second, grabs her black hood back as Jug’s voiceover tells us all about the void Betty stared into during this Black Hood madness, and how she heard a truth whispering in her ear that this isn’t over…

So…is Betty about to don the black hood? Or does she just realize that the Svenson-at-the-grave incident could’ve been a set-up by the real Black Hood? Or is there a third option I’m not even considering because who ever really knows with this show?